This will be an interesting one to watch, the new interim CEO...

This will be an interesting one to watch, the new interim CEO has only had his feet under the desk for a month or two but has made some big changes to the direction of the company. The shutdown of contractors and decreasing AISC at Hera have brought AMI some time but the flipside of that is that the metrics might all be green at Hera now but it will cease to produce metal and cashflow at the planned end of quarter, losing the Hera workforce could come back to haunt them later on in labour and skills shortages continue, by stopping development at Federation and going to C&M they are buying themselves time. The metrics at Peak look to be all going the wrong way, and Dargues is stabilized but a pretty unrewarding lot of work for not much money. Sounds like it never stops raining out there at all 3 sites which creates its own issues.

Seems to be a story of making some very tough decisions but are buying enough time to restructure and hopefully let metal prices get better, still some element of "kicking the can down the road" though, and the future recovery/expansion stages have execution risks. A traditional cost cutting/"stop losing money" and leaving the metal in the ground for later story, but the problem with this traditional cost cutting disciplined approach is that its proven successful in a benign low-inflation environment, but is tricky to execute in a high inflation/labour/resource/contractor shortage environment.

As others have said, with 3 operations and a lot of complexity the turn-around is similar to turning around an oil tanker, its a gradual process, but sudden changes in metal prices or exchange rates can still catch them out. The interesting thing is the psychology of management going from a short-term cost-cutting/fire fighting emergency management style to an expansion and forward looking long term investment style. Switch modes too early and you get caught out by black swan operational or economic events, leave it too late and you miss the boat/next boom and you can't get contractors/staff etc. Remember that base metals and gold are often described as "5 minutes of sunshine followed by decades of despair", and that goes for metal prices as well as investment returns for shareholders.